Superconductivity from Spin-Canting Fluctuations in Rhombohedral Graphene

Zhiyu Dong; Étienne Lantagne-Hurtubise; Jason Alicea

doi:10.1103/2ts4-cxhs

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Superconductivity from Spin-Canting Fluctuations in Rhombohedral Graphene

Zhiyu Dong, Étienne Lantagne-Hurtubise, Jason Alicea

DOI 10.1103/2ts4-cxhs · Physical Review X

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Abstract

Rhombohedral graphene multilayers host various broken-symmetry metallic phases as well as superconductors whose pairing mechanism and order parameter symmetry remain unsettled. Strikingly, experiments have revealed prominent superconducting regions in rhombohedral bilayer and trilayer graphene devices with proximity-induced Ising spin-orbit coupling. We propose that these superconductors descend from a common spin-canted normal state that spontaneously breaks a U(1) spin symmetry and thus supports soft magnon modes. In particular, we show that these soft modes can mediate pairing through interband scattering events that are symmetry forbidden in the absence of spin-orbit coupling, thus providing a promising explanation for spin-orbit-enabled pairing. Numerous other experimental observations—including nontrivial dependence of superconductivity on the spin-orbit coupling strength, in-plane magnetic fields, and Fermi surface structure—also naturally follow from our scenario.